Shelling Update

APGG shelled 21,137 farmer stock tons through January 2010, out of our total 2009 Crop peanuts handled of 81,417 tons.  The remaining 60,280 tons will cause us to shell late again, all the way into September unless something changes.
 
Shelled inventories from the 2008 Crop have been used for the most part, even though they ran into the first quarter of 2010.  Hopefully, peanut product manufacturers can get completely finished with these through their systems without any serious quality issues.
 

Shelling Yields

Shelling yields continue to be a major challenge.  Total Kernel Content (TKC) is the lowest ever coming from the shelling plant because of the extreme size differences of the new varieties.  Jumbos and Splits are up, and Mediums and No.1's are lower than we have ever experienced.  We will continue to work on them, but do not look for them to change much.  

 
Shelled Peanut Markets

December and January have proven extremely quiet in the marketplace.  Most buyers would like to layer on some 2010 Crop business, but it seems that offers versus bids are about $.01 - $.02 per pound apart.  The large carry-in from the 2008 Crop continues to haunt our pricing some, and has slowed movement of 2009 Crop inventories. 

 
Farmer Stock Contracts

Will our yields stay at 3,400 pounds per acre with the new varieties, when we have previously averaged 3,150?  Will our weather pattern change to drier-than-normal in 2010 after a wetter-than-normal 2009?  We had 9" of rain in December with another 9" in January!  Weather forecasters predicted that El Nino would bring a wetter, colder winter, and they could not have been more correct.

I assure you all these questions get plenty of attention around here on a regular basis.  Growers have been working on 2010 Crop planting decisions since harvest, yet continued wet weather has already hindered land preparation, and could influence corn acres very soon.  Commodity prices are down somewhat since harvest, but some prices have traded and commitments locked in on some crop acres.  It will be very interesting to see how the remaining pre-planting decisions materialize. 

With a huge 2008 Crop of 2.5 million tons, U.S. peanut growers as a whole cut back 30% of our peanut acres for the 2009 Crop.  The U.S. yielded just over 1.8 million tons of 2009 Crop peanuts, which should get our supply and demand back in line near the end of the marketing year (August).   

As always, thank you for your help, support and cooperation.  Please let us know if we can help you in any way.